Today, internet shoppers have no way of knowing if an online coupon code or promotion code is valid. There are, for instance, various coupons, discount numbers, promotion codes, and the like that online shoppers can enter in a website to attempt to receive a discount when making an online purchase. These coupons, discount numbers, or promotion codes will generally be referred to as “promotion codes.” Typically, shoppers have to test the validity of promotion codes at checkout to see if a retailer will accept them. Reasons for a retailer not accepting a promotion code include, but are not limited to, the following:
(1) the promotion code has expired (its applicable date has passed);
(2) the promotion code cannot be applied to the current shopping basket (e.g. price of items in basket is insufficient for the discount, promotion code applies to a different product than that selected in basket);
(3) the promotion code cannot be redeemed due to the user's profile (location, etc. . . . ); or
(4) the promotion code has been deactivated by retailer.
The typical way to validate a promotion code, therefore, involves the manual validation of the promotion code by the online shopper during the shopping process. This requires every internet shopper to perform the following steps:
(1) visit the retailer they want to make a purchase from;
(2) add one of the products they want to buy to the shopping cart;
(3) get to the checkout page;
(4) open a new browser tab, and find a promotion code for that retailer;
(5) go back to the retailer's website and apply the promotion code to test whether it is valid; and
(6) repeat from step 4, until the online shopper purchases the item after finding (or not finding) a promotion code he/she is satisfied with or does not make a purchase and abandons the shopping cart.
Put simply, online shoppers have no way of knowing a promotion code's validity without painstakingly performing the manual steps outline above.